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Which apparen'tly includes,
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Shout out to 13araba, Sakuya, Zeranion, pyro stick figure 76, and a special thanks to the people on the discord who helped with the chapter.
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Random aah brain rot that I randomly conjured out of the ether, which at this point I might move to its own story.
(Fantasy world with Jobs x Symphogear)
The Bard Class is Made Out of Bard's
4th Song
Defense Order
Getting kicked out of a party that hasn't even formally been made didn't really change her life much.
Is what she would say if not for the fact that said party's leader all but banned her from interacting with his party members, her friends that she's known for a full decade.
Well, they weren't her only friends of course! There were other village girls like Mimi, Gladys and Cewe that she hung out with, and she also messed around with some of the kids that were younger than her! And by that she means do pranks and make sure that they don't do anything actually dangerous.
But she doesn't hang around with them as much as the others. They've never made an actual mess like that one time that she and Brad almost accidentally set a tree on fire. Like how Lark would actually be the level headed one of their group and would scold Brad and herself whenever they do something dumb. Maria being the mom of the group just like Lark does, while Louise would usually enjoy their company despite being the shy girl that she was.
So Hallow basically won't let her do any of those. He's somehow made it so that everyone is always together, not giving them any time for themselves as whenever she sees the tentatively called Hero's Party as if they were all tied to the hip.
He would honest to god glare at her whenever she even glances their way. She would have actually laughed at it if not for how pathetic it actually made him look.
And also stupid whenever he confronted her and shouted what she was doing there. Like dude, this was a small village that didn't even have fifty people as a population, where did he expect her to be? The other side of the world?
But she finds it pathetic because if she was right and he was a reincarnator like her, then it was honestly a pathetic thing to do for someone that was most likely an adult in all but name. But if he was an actual kid that got the idea of the Hero Job that high into his head then it's a bit more conflicted, but still kind of sad.
Or maybe he actually did find out that she too was a reincarnator, and somehow slotted himself as the antagonist 'steal your original party' evil person guy. Because if he does, that would mean that he was making her the main character of a crappy fantasy setting.
Which kind of wouldn't work because those kinds of stories usually only happen after they've gone through multiple adventures. Something that they have most certainly not gone through, or even started.
She would have said she was bored, if not for the fact that in this life of medieval fantasy, villagers have things that villagers need to do to survive. "Heave, ho! Heave, ho!" She sang the simple tune as she lifted and swung the hoe down, its metal head hitting the ground below.
The action repeated on and on, with several other villagers following suit as they tended to their own fields. But where others had only done a part of their fields, she was already finished. The speed of her work much faster compared to that of even adults.
And after sowing the seeds for their summer vegetables, she let out a sigh as she wiped the sweat off of her brow, leaning on her hoe while doing so. "Fuuuh. I guess that's about it." She cupped a hand over her mouth. "Hey! I'm done here! Do you guys over there want any help!"
"Uh, sure." Her next door neighbor said with a small laugh, using his own shirt to wipe off his sweat. "Honestly, how'd you have all of this energy Chris? I don't think even my own granpa ever finished caring the fields as fast as that!"
"Well to be fair I'm cheating." She chuckled as she walked towards old man Tani with her hoe on her shoulder. "I'll go finish that side then, is that good with you?"
"Oh yeah! Thanks a lot for this!" He nodded. And with a hum, her body thrummed with power as she then began working again.
Magic in this fantasy world was something that everyone, and by that she meant everyone, has. The amount that a person could have however, is usually random, though nobles have always been said to have a higher pool of magic.
So it being an innate thing that people have makes it relatively easy for people to cast them, heck that's how mom usually turns on their stove to actually light fire. Much cheaper than using a Flint and steel and less likely to cause a house fire too!
Which reminds her to not let her small, cute, and most definitely impressionable little brother to copy her and throw magic around Willy nilly. There's a difference between a five year old with the caution of an adult slinging magic and an actual five year old doing the same thing.
Finished with her farm work, along with helping others do theirs, she gave a wave towards the other farm hands as she went past the village borders to go downstream after grabbing her stuff.
Not to take a bath or anything, even if it would have been quite satisfying with all the sweat that she was covered in, but to instead continue her daily training.
Because in this world, unlike some other fantasy worlds, a person's magic would grow along with them. Like muscle, you just need to put in the effort to do so.
There isn't a universal count for a person's magical capabilities or something, although seeing numbers go up would most certainly be satisfying, she could feel the difference herself.
After all, for a person who has lived a whole life before without it, the weird floaty tangible yet also not feeling that's in her gut is most definitely noticeable.
"Alright, let's see. There doesn't seem to be anyone around so I should be in the clear." She muttered as she looked left and right, man if mom found her like this she'd probably go on a full rant on how unlady-like she was. Standing in an open field with her long sleeved dress tied around like a belt while wearing the sleeveless crop top that she asked Miss Sem to make and short shorts would definitely get her a lecture. The skirt that she had worn folded and lay beside her hoe and some of her other stuff on a big rock beside the river.
But comfortability is the name of the game for her! So what if it exposes a lot of skin and makes her look tomboyish! It looks cool anyway! She just need like a jacket or a scarf to go with the look and it'll all come together! Maybe replace the dress she's tied on her stomach with like a half skirt or a hip cape. oh maybe a headpiece would also look good on her?
"Oh that's a good idea. That would probably look nice-no focus!" she shook her head and chose to shelve the idea of her adventuring costume for a later time.
"Alright, Bard Song test number 102." She muttered to herself as she raised her right crossbows next to her chest, gripping the other tightly with her left hand as she closed her eyes.
Magic, in this world, came from the power of words, of chants. There are of course generic ones for lower powered spells that are called daily life magic that almost everyone uses on a daily basis, but Jobs opens more specific branches of magic for people to use.
It's like a typical skill tree branch for a game honestly, people of certain Jobs get certain types of magic. Other people could try and copy them, but skill, talent, familiarity and of course the type of their Job are all factors of how effective the spell would be.
In other words, a Farmer, the job, could technically cast the spell that a Saint could use. But the results would of course be astronomically different because of those factors. Even if they copied the spell's chant one to one.
Jobs shows a person's innate talents, and nurtures them upon revelation. People would somehow click with the understanding of what their Job is, and when they want to cast a magic that their Job is known for, the chant would appear in their mind depending on their level of skill.
The same applied to her of course, she was already quite proficient with magic of course, so when she first tried to do so after getting Bard as her Job, she got chants for magic like Lullaby, Angelic Voice, and Minor Illusion. Simple debuffing and crowd control spells, things that Bard's are known for.
Ignoring the fact that they're all mind altering and one of them is literally a charm spell, she did find that casting them along with instruments gives a boost to their effectiveness.
Well duh, hello, Bard? She was really stupid to not realize that sooner. But because of that a thought came to her mind.
If using an instrument raises the effectiveness of her Job specific magic, what about the other ones?
"Killter Ichaival Tron~" She chantes, no, sung, as a glowing white magical circle spun under her feet before slowly disappearing.
And when she opened her eyes, her vision was much sharper, everything around her was clearer than ever. In addition to the fact that her body felt lighter than it has ever been.
"Haha, guess it works!" She grinned as she held her crossbows. "oh this definitely works better than just humming! I think stacking Overture and Hawk Eyes worked!" She jumped giddily, nothing that she was jumping higher than normal.
"Great! Amazing! As expected of me!" She grinned and twirled, unable to contain the blatant joy that she was feeling. Hurriedly, she placed her weapons to their holsters as she brought her handmade notebook out of the pocket of her dress that was still tied at her waist.
"Oh but I think I can still stack more buffs on that holy chant. Is it because I actually voiced it out rather than humming it? That one was done in a real hurry and was definitely weaker than just using a normal chant. I'll have to test that later. But what other spell do I stack? Steady Aim probably sounds good and I did see Mr. Rain cast it that one time when I asked for pointers on how to use a crossbow. Replicating it probably shouldn't be that hard."
Words have power in this world, and chants are the way that people use them. People would use the common tongue to do so of course, the Rista Kingdom's widespread language.
Which meant that it was a whole other language that she had to learn to adapt to this world. She'd be able to put trilingual now on her resume! Though of course Japanese and English aren't languages that exist in this world, so that's kind of out of the picture.
Though she wonders if there's a Japan expy somewhere in this world. Probably in the East or something.
But in the end of it, words are what people use to weave magic to form the phenomenon known as magic circles, which in turn manifests their will into the world as magic.
So far, she's managed to shortcut two whole buffs into a simple singular chant. Granted that they were multi target buffs all now changed to a single target, herself. But she also knew that she could most definitely do more.
Granted that the holy chant was, well, holy in origin, she might even be able to stack in some holy buffs too if she knew any. And considering that the chant itself was one for a transformation, she might even be able to one day do the cool and awesome magical girl transformation sequence! Which was most definitely mandatory.
Just have to learn that. Because even if she had a chant that could possibly be used to stack all of those effects at once, she'll have to somehow weave all of those magic together. She's studied magic under grandma Mao for most of her life, but there were still many things that she doesn't know about it.
"Since I'm a Bard I could cheat in the chant part with a song, but I guess having a writing and language background doesn't hurt does it?" She chuckled to herself before grabbing her crossbow tightly.
"Alright! Now to try and see if I can actually fight while this amount of buff is oooon!"
And as soon as she tried to take a step, she closed a gap of a handful of meters. Stripping and falling, essentially throwing herself onto the river with a splash. As she lifted her head out of the water, she took a big gulp of air as she simply laid in the shallow river as the water continued to flow downstream.
"Or maybe I need to get used to this amount of buffs first. So Overture is a lot stronger with the holy chant, got it." She grumbled as she raised her now wet pair of weapons. "And dry all of these too. Ugh. Maybe a wind spell would do it? Maybe mixed with a fire one to make a dryer or something?"
"Just what are you doing?"
"Huh?" She turned to look at the source of the sound and saw a brown haired boy standing not too far away from the river, wearing simple leather armor and carrying an iron tipped spear on his shoulders.
"Oh Lark, what's up?" She called out as she raised her weapon, making the water around her splash as she did so. "Wait, aren't you like, banned from interacting with me or something?" She said as she stood and walked incredibly slowly to her stuff, where the brown haired Spearman isn't far from standing from.
"Ugh! Why are you wearing that?!" He shouted as he snapped his head away from her. To which she looked down at her own drenched clothes.
"Oh this? I mean I'm not in Hallow's party anymore so I don't have to wear his group mandated clothes anyway." Which consisted of a frilly shirt under a vest and leather armor, with slightly baggy pants to finish the look. And she'd had to essentially force him to let her wear the leather armor too for protection!
The fact that he's basically made it so that everyone in their party had to wear clothing that consists of their exact Job was slightly annoying. Honestly, she'd understand if a party had like an emblem or something to show that they're in the same group, but a whole dress code like that was too much for her too in addition to all of the things that was Hallow.
"I'm not talking about that! You're-!" Lark took a deep breath and let out a sigh as he held his head in his hand. "Geez, you're always like this Chris."
"Yes, yes, this Chris never changes." She chuckled as she took her hair and attempted to wring the water off of it. "Though I do have to ask, why are you here anyway? I mean the Hallow ban is still a thing yeah?"
"Hallow ban? There you go again with naming things." The boy let out an exasperated sigh before he ran his hand through his hair. "It's about the expedition. The ones with the goblins."
"Expedition? Oh, you mean that one we went through two weeks ago? Didn't the village chief make it into a quest for adventurers to take on?" She said as did the same for the dress tied to her waist and tried to wring the water off of the wet clothing. "Oh! Did someone actually take the quest? That's pretty fast."
"I guess it kind of is. Everyone's making a whole mess to prepare for the adventurers arrival." He said as he sat down on the grassy ground below, and she did the same while she tried to dry her clothes.
"Oh is that what they were doing? Guess that explains why there weren't as many people out in the fields."
Lark stayed silent for a handful of seconds, letting both of them sit in silence before he turned towards her again. "Chris-"
"My answer is no." She said simply.
"I haven't even asked you the question you know?"
"I can already tell what you were going to ask." She huffed as she leaned back, using her hands to keep her steady while looking at the sky. "The quest right? Hallow's probably going to either force himself to join in or just tail the adventurer party so that he can get into the action. And knowing him, he'll somehow drag everyone with him."
"And that everyone doesn't include you?" Lark spoke in a lower tone of voice.
"Not anymore." She said with a dry chuckle. "We don't mesh well, me and him. He really rubs me the wrong way. Even if we were to work together it would be reluctant. And we'd probably get in the actual adventurers' way when they're clearing the quest."
"Yeah." He sighed as he looked down towards his hands, twiddling his thumb. "Both of you like to act as leaders after all."
"... I guess we both do huh." She never thought about it that way. She was mostly just trying to be an adult in the group whenever they're actually doing something serious so it just came about naturally, giving out orders and telling people what to do that is.
So she grumbled as she let her back hit the grassy ground below. "Aw man! So its not completely his fault that I was kicked out? That's soo different from all the stories that I read!"
"What kind of stories did you even read?"
"Ones where the protagonists are kicked out of the heroes party because they suck but was actually super talented. So they become successful while the hero party sort of fall apart."
"Who'd write a story like that!?" The brown haired boy snapped as he turned his head her way.
"You'd be surprised." She chuckled, thinking of the many stories with that premises. "There's also a lot about nobles that are denounced, having their engagement broken in one of the most humiliating way possible, and getting their revenge."
"Okay that one at least sounds like something that someone would probably write, knowing how nobles are." Lark mumbled. "But again, who'd ever write stories like those anyway?"
"Me!" She declared gleefully as she raised her hands. "It's my fallback in case adventuring doesn't work out. And probably will do as a side hustle."
"Wait so your plan for the future in case you don't make it as an adventurer is to be a writer?" The brown haired Spearman asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I mean it sounds fun doesn't it? Oh I guess I can make it into a song or something too. Use my barding skills to good use." She nodded safely.
"I don't think that's a word Chris."
"Psh, if I'm going to be a writer I'm going to make up words anyway! So what's the big deal!" She grinned, and the Park gave a small chuckle at her comeback.
"I guess you're right." He shook his head good naturedly, but slowly the smile on his face fell. "So I can't convince you to come back?"
"Probably not." She answered back. "Me and Hallow don't mesh together. The party wouldn't really work that well with both of us together in it. We'd just keep butting heads, in an unhealthy way too."
"Is there even a healthy way to do that?" Lark asked.
"Yup, sure is. A healthy rivalry that pushes both sides to grow is a thing that exist after all." She nodded her head. "But what he and I have is definetly not that."
"Yeah I can see that." The brown haired boy said with a sigh.
"Well how about the opposite then." She raised her legs and threw her body forward to get into a sitting position. "If I'd say to leave Hallow and go with me, what'd you say about it Lark?"
The brown eyed Spearman stares into her eyes with an opened mouth before his gaze escaped hers. "I… can't." He said while looking away. "My father… he wants me to accompany Hallow on his journey. As a companion."
"Hmm. I guess that kinda makes sense. Your dad is the next village chief after the gramps after all." She mused. "He probably thinks that it'd look bad if his son that's the same age as the Hero doesn't come with him on his adventures. Especially since you have a combat oriented Job."
"Yeah." Lark nodded his head as he looked at the sky with a sad look. "And I think that Maria is like that too. Ever since she apprenticed under Father Simon she's been doing her best to get close to Hallow too."
The church probably wants a close contact to a Hero after all. It can't be helped." She said with a sigh and a shake of her head. "You'll have to take care of stuff like that too since you're taking care of the party's management."
He turned to look at her with a furrowed brow. "And why do you think that I'd do that?"
"Brad is too much of an air head, Louise can probably do paperwork like that but be too slow, Maria is good with it probably but she'll define favor Hallow and the church too much. The less said about Hallow the better it is for my mental health, so all that's left is you."
"How!? I can barely keep any of them in check!?" The brown haired boy hissed her way.
"Well not my problem, literally this time! So good luck with that!" She cackled as she took off her wet boots and waved them to get the water off of them. "So… when's those adventurers are gonna get here again?"
"Around a day or two. Maybe they'll rest at grandpa-the village chief's home first and set off in the morning."
"We haven't found their nest or village when we went out so they'll probably spend a few days to find that. But if they have a Scout or a Ranger, anyone with a searching type Job would help that go faster." She mused. "hopefully they aren't the rowdy types that makes problems."
"We can only hope." Lark sighed and stopped talking as he gazed at the flowing river, letting a short peaceful moment of silence filled only with the sounds of nature.
"I… guess I'll have to go." The brown haired Spearman said reluctantly. "Hallow said that we were supposed to have another training session, he probably just wants to show off to Maria again. So… I'll have to leave."
She snorted. "Yeah, sounds about right." She shook her head before she held out a fist to her side. "Good luck with all of that, Lark."
He faltered for a brief second, face going through a multitude of expressions before a small smile worked its way to his face. "Yeah." He said as his own fist met her's. "Good luck to you too, Chris."
"You'll definitely need it more though." She snickered as she lowered her hand. "Have fun babysitting everyone!"
"Ugh, now I don't even know why I missed you hanging out with us." He groaned exasperatedly yet the smile never left his face.
They gathered for a few more minutes, before eventually the village's second most responsible youngling left, leaving the first most definitely responsible growing magical girl to her own devices.
Alone, yet again.
She took a deep breath, for sure treasuring the memory of what was most likely their final one to one meeting to heart before standing up.
"Now then, let's see if I can cheat magic casting with a song."